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A game of Doom was raging when Eric Janson realized that his jump from a 12-year tenure at Lucent Technologies to a start-up company was the right decision.
In the days leading up to that realization, Janson had heard about Bluetooth wireless technology. He had even seen actual components. But it was on the convention floor at the Bluetooth World Congress last June where Janson saw the magic demonstrated.

That game of Doom, a first-person game where warriors battle to the death, was being played on two computers that weren't wired together. They were using Bluetooth technology, which allows devices within 30 feet of each other to communicate using radio waves.

"What struck me was it's finally real," said Janson, who has just started as vice president of sales marketing and applications engineering at Cambridge Silicon Radio, a Dallas-based company that produces Bluetooth microchips.
After more than two years since its inception, Bluetooth technology will start appearing in devices this Christmas.

Ericsson was the first to announce a Bluetooth-enabled cellular phone in June. It will ship sometime in the last quarter of this year. The phone, which works with a wireless headset, will probably roll out in Europe first.

Bluetooth is named after Harald Bluetooth, a Viking king who consolidated a group of disparate states into the country of Denmark in the 10th century.

"The link there is that Harald Bluetooth brought together warring factions and connected them. So it's basically to do with connecting -- connecting different devices," said Yuri Rebello, director of Engineering Services at Nokia Products in Toronto.

Nokia and Ericsson are two of the five founding members of the Bluetooth Special Internet Group. The other members are Toshiba, IBM and Intel.

Since the Bluetooth SIG first got together in May 1998, more than 1,800 technology companies have become members. The open standards technology will allow companies to put chips in devices that will be able to send and receive data via short-range radio waves.

The inexpensive transceivers will be added to devices as an onboard chip or through an adapter device such as PC cards, which are wafer thin plug-ins that slip into the side of notebooks.

The radio technology uses a globally available, unlicensed radio band that supports data speeds of up to 720 kilobits per second (kbps). That is almost 13 times zippier than the fastest conventional computer modem.

"Bluetooth allows you to do away with cables. It allows dissimilar devices to talk to each other and exchange data," said Tony Mastroianni, director of business networks at 3Com Canada.

In home technology, Bluetooth will allow simple sharing of computer peripherals such as printers and scanners, as well as high-speed Internet connections.
Notebook computer users will also benefit form Bluetooth. "You would want to connect wirelessly and move around and still be able to connect to a personal digital assistant or do printing," said Mastroianni.

Bluetooth network ports could also be strategically placed in malls or at airports so that notebook and hand-held computer users could access the Internet without wires.
Hundreds of million of cell phones connected by Bluetooth will also be a big driver of the technology. Not only will devices be able to use a cellular phone as a gateway to the Internet, but the phones could use Bluetooth to switch modes and use a land line when it's in close proximity to a home or office handset. Or it could work as an intercom with other cell devices nearby.

The business world will also benefit. Instant trading of data between business devices such as phones; hand-held computers and office equipment will be an enormous timesaving technology. Notebooks in a meeting could share presentations, a common Internet connection or files.

Janson said the first products to arrive with Bluetooth on-board will likely be cellular phones, which will communicate with wireless headsets for hands-free operation.
At a quarter of an inch wide and two thumbnails thick, the chips are small enough to fit into a headband. In cellular phones they are being integrated into the battery pack. "It's a good place to put it because all you need to add is two terminals on the battery pack. A motherboard redesign isn't necessary," said Janson.

The technology won't be without its problems, at least initially. The project grew out of a specification drawn up by the Bluetooth SIG, but that is simply a roadmap for technology designers. Early Bluetooth devices on one brand of device may not work with other devices made by a different manufacturer.

This interoperability issue will be resolved once a standard is put in place next year.

There's also an issue of interference. The technology works in the industrial scientific and medical (ISM) band of the radio spectrum with is in the 2.4 GHz range. Some extended-range wireless home phones have been using this part of the radio spectrum.
If that part of the radio spectrum gets noisy, because there's lots of Bluetooth devices busily chatting amongst themselves, then data speeds will drop.

A microwave can also cause trouble.

"At lunch time you're going to see data rates drop when some reheats a burrito nearby," said Brent Bettencourt chief technology officer of AirPrime, a Santa Clara, California wireless chip maker.

Microwaves emit radio waves in the ISM band. So do some garage door openers.
Bettencourt said the troubles will be predominant during to busy times of they day when everyone uses their Bluetooth devices all at once. When the Bluetooth spectrum gets busy, devices will reduce their communication speeds to accommodate the disruption.

Janson believes that interference won't be an issue because of the frequency hopping nature of Bluetooth. The data from a Bluetooth device is chopped up into small data packages that hop from frequency to frequency within the ISM band.

The key to the Bluetooth's success is whether device manufacturers can get the technology into consumers' hands at an affordable price.

Chip makers have had a hard time meeting the promise of the $5 chip, which was touted when Bluetooth was first conceived.

Currently the price of putting a chip into a device is between $10 US and $18 US ($14 and $25 Canadian).

"In a handheld device that's a lot of money when you're talking about a $150 US ($225 Canadian) device. It's going to be a very difficult nut to swallow," said Bettencourt.